Free The Best American Poetry 2015 by David Lehman

carats
    swearing their ritzier whisper and pinch,
    over and over the nimble thumb-catch.
    Noble this music, good, noble, and able.
    Grandeur for soul, chums, glad glory for table.
    from 32 Poems

DANA LEVIN
----
Watching the Sea Go

    Thirty seconds of yellow lichen.
    Thirty seconds of coil and surge,
    fern and froth, thirty seconds
    of salt, rock, fog, spray.
    Clouds
    moving slowly to the left—
    A door in a rock through which you could see
    â€”
    another rock,
    laved by the weedy tide.
    Like filming breathing—thirty seconds
    of tidal drag, fingering
    the smaller stones
    down the black beach—what color
    was that, aquamarine?
    Starfish spread
    their salmon-colored hands.
    â€”
    I stood and I shot them.
    I stood and I watched them
    right after I shot them: thirty seconds of smashed sea
    while the real sea
    thrashed and heaved—
    They were the most boring movies ever made.
    I wanted
    to mount them together and press play.
    â€”
    Thirty seconds of waves colliding.
    Kelp
    with its open attitudes, seals
    riding the swells, curved in a row
    just under the water—
    the sea,
    over and over.
    Before it’s over.
    from Poem-a-Day

PATRICIA LOCKWOOD
----
See a Furious Waterfall Without Water

    Never has an empty hand been made
    into more of a fist, and Waterfall Without
    it swings so hard it swings out
    of existence. How will anyone get married
    now, with no wall of water behind them?
    How will Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel
    marry Across Niagara Falls on a Tightrope?
    Over the Falls would have worn a veil,
    Across the Falls would have tied a tie,
    hand in hand they would have poured
    down the aisle to the sound of rustling
    silks. Later they would narrow
    to a lovely neck, later they would make
    a gentle elbow in the water, later
    they would pour into a still round pool,
    and dance for three minutes to what they
    called music. Niagara Falls is a family
    member. He is drunk for the first time
    in a hundred years. “I don’t call that music
    I call that noise,” would have screamed
    Niagara Falls, right through his aquiline
    family nose. All of Niagara’s ex-lovers
    are here. The World’s Steepest Dive
    stands up and says, “I’ve been diving
    so long now, and when will I hit?
    When will you be there for me, Niagara?”
    First Woman Behind the Falls stands up
    so everyone can see her, so everyone
    can see what has happened to her looks.
    â€œYou took the best day of my life,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Niagara.” The World’s
    Longest Breath-Hold stands up,
    she loves him, she drew in her breath
    the first time she saw him and never
    breathed out again, not ever. The furious
    waterfall without water he punches her
    into tomorrow; the World’s Longest
    Breath-Hold is longer now and she calls
    to him from the future, “You’re here,
    you’re roaring again where I am,
    Tomorrow.” Finally his first love the U-
    Shape stands up. Stands up and she says,
    â€œNiagara.” The sound curves down and up
    again, even the shape of her voice is a U.
    â€œI don’t call that music I call that noise,”
    says the furious waterfall without water,
    trembling at the very lip, unable to contain
    himself, and there he goes roaring
    back into her arms.
    from A Public Space

DORA MALECH
----
Party Games

    Might night right sight?
    â€”Andrew Joron
    The first thing she did after we blindfolded her
    and turned her in circles by her shoulders
    was lunge
    for where she thought her target hung
    and hit tree trunk instead, with one strike
    against it split the stick
    in half to jagged dagger
    in her
    fists. The donkey gently swayed
    within reach, barely grazed
    and staring straight ahead with the conviction
    inherent to its kind at the horizon
    that a gaze
    implies,
    paper mane fluttering in the breeze of a near miss,
    belly ballasted with melting chocolate kisses,
    drawn grin belying its
    thingness, rictus
    of ritual and craft. She’s grinning
    too, and